Chapters 21-24 Summary

In Chapter 21, Raul and the others are filling their week on the ship with exploration and conversation. They find a guide to the River Tethys on the bookshelves and page through it. They discuss the Cantos, and theories of what might have happened to Old Earth. History says that Old Earth was swallowed by a black hole, but Silenus suggested in the Cantos that it was moved by the Cove to the Hercules Cluster or the Magellanic Clouds. Aenea reveals that her mother is the one who discovered that the Earth was moved. She discusses her father in more detail for the first time, and speaks of conversations with him before she was born. "He showed me... well, it's complication, Raul," she says (pg. 162.) They settle into a comfortable routine and fill the time reading and playing games. At the end...